Chemically Imbalanced (espresso-jogged screeds)

the case of the riposting relative

another in a series: tales of coffee woe you, too, could experience were you enough of a self-flagellating masochist.

what reaction could one have offered? where, at the moment the shoe dropped, could we have tucked our mouthful of shrimp crepe florentine in order to burble a protest? who could have known, after nine years of close familial relations, that such a secret could exist? that the mother-in-law, long a public supporter of our addled coffee avocations, was capable of dank, sinister habits that would reveal themselves, at a moment’s notice, over the rustic table at la madeleine’s? in PUBLIC?! could the family into which i married have been better reconnoitered? why did the rough-hewn beams of the stylized, urbanized, popularized french “country” restaurant seem to collapse like an oil rig in a typhoon on my frozen, anguished scalp? wither my depth perception, since all the world of a sudden seemed cold. two-dimensional. painted.

for it was she who blurted to an aunt, through the din of a raucous meal, “i just get the extra large with cream at dunkin’ donuts and make it last three days.”

pause, silverware clatters. no one is chewing.

“coffee keeps just fine in the fridge.”